Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Donald Trump views armed dominance as the essential element of U.S. policy in the global arena. The New York Times and the Washington Post support his notions with their regular calls for greater military spending and nuclear modernization. Now it seems that the think tank community is joining the mainstream media in praising aspects of Trump’s dangerous national security agenda.
The charter of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft claims to promote ideas that “move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war, toward military restraint and diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace.” The Institute was co-founded by Andrew Bacevich, known for denigrating the “forever wars” of the United States and the “new American militarism.” In a recent assessment, however, the Institute argues that many elements of Trump’s national security agenda “advance U.S. responsible statecraft.” Every aspect of this assessment is questionable.
***According to the Quincy Institute, “The new National Security Strategy (NSS) represents a significant shift away from the pursuit of primacy. Its formal rejection of global dominance marks a necessary break from the post-Cold War consensus that led to endless war and strategic overextension.”
This is just not true. The trillion-dollar defense budget, which equals the spending of the rest of the global community; U.S. militarism in South America, the Persian Gulf, and West Africa; our complicity in Israeli war crimes and genocide; and support for right-wing political parties in East and West Europe point to problems and not problem solving for the United States. Trump’s NSS even refers to the European Union as a “bigger threat” than Russia or China!
***The Quincy Institute’s support for Trump’s “handling of the Ukraine war is perhaps its clearest expression of nascent strategic restraint. He deserves credit for reestablishing direct U.S.-Russia dialogue, launching a peace initiative and resisting significant pressure…to imposing secondary sanctions on Russian oil.”
Trump deserves no credit. He came into office promising to end the war in 24 hours; he said last week that “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed;” and there has been no real discussion of the thorniest issues that separate the two sides. Trump has made it clear that he is willing to walk away from the issues that separate Russia and Ukraine. The Institute has never acknowledged that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is one of the “root causes” of the war.
***Quincy cites the “breakthrough with Belarus,” marking improved bilateral relations as a total victory that “deserves high praise,” demonstrating that “Washington can be a pragmatic actor.”
This aspect is particularly risible in view of Belarus’ status as a Russian puppet state that recently received a Russian nuclear-capable missile system in order to intimidate not only Ukraine but all of Europe.
***Finally, the Quincy Institute credits the Trump administration with orchestrating a “domestic realignment,” including a “significant ideological shift,” that finds “younger Republicans…increasingly skeptical of unconditional support for Israel.” Quincy assesses this move as “signaling a promising domestic realignment in favor of restraint.”
This assessment would be more meaningful if Republicans actually voted against reckless military spending, unlimited military assistance to Israel, the illegal attacks on small craft in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the unjustified aerial bombing in Nigeria.
What is missing from the media and think tank accounts of Trump’s disastrous year in managing the U.S. national security agenda is why the United States has never proclaimed a purpose for its vast global power that includes 700 military bases and facilities the world over. The idea of “America First” should mean that the United States must avoid unnecessary entanglements in the Old World and the Third World where so much blood and treasure has been lost. The United States simply does not require the global dominance that it pursues.
The mainstream media have applauded the Trump administration for last month’s $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that led immediately to China’s live-fire military exercises around the island nation. These events demonstrate the potential for growing tension and even escalation in the Indo-Pacific. The greatest failure of U.S. foreign policy over the past decade has been the inability to create a diplomatic dialogue with China, a prerequisite for establishing some semblance of global stability.
Trump has been leading a bumptious national security policy over the past year, while Xi Jinping has reversed his “wolf warrior” diplomacy of recent years and presented itself as a “serious country with predictable, consistent policies,” according to Fareed Zakaria. Trump, for his part, has been arrogant, cocksure, and egotistical. His renaming of the “Institute for Peace,” that is now “Trump’s Institute for Peace,” says it all.
The post Prominent Think Tank Joins Media in Endorsing Trump’s Foreign Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.